The Gettysburg Review

I hope your holidays were merry and bright, that you got what you wanted, and if you didn’t, that you returned it for something you did want without upsetting your loved ones too much.

My apologies for the delay in posting the release of the Spring 2015 issue, but things have been crazy here at the home office. We are preparing ourselves for some changes ahead, the foremost of which is that Peter will be retiring from the college and the Gettysburg Review at the end of August. Please send him a note thanking him for all he has done for literature over the years and wishing him well on his new adventures. Come September, I will be humbly assuming the mantle of editor, and along with Ellen and Kris, we will continue to find and deliver to you writing and art that is poignant, challenging, and beautiful.

On to the Spring 2015 issue. We have as usual some wonderful, thought-provoking pieces for you. Highlights include Maureen McCoy’s “Smile: Your War Is Over,” a stirring memoir of her World War II veteran father’s difficulty in readapting to civilian life and the consequent toll his recurrent trauma took on his family. Don Lago’s essay “Rooted in the Sun” takes us west, to the San Juan River valley, where he contemplates in rich and compelling detail the relationship of cottonwood trees to Hopi culture, exploring in particular the significance of katsina dolls, which were and still are carved primarily from the roots of the cottonwood. Surya Kalsi’s short story “Nocturnes” features Lily, a gifted but fallen protagonist trying to right her life while working at a geriatric facility and moonlighting as an escort. On the more postmodern end of the fiction spectrum is Kristen Gleason’s “New Village,” a pleasingly absurd story that explores the difficulty of love and the ease of betrayal, as well as the anxiety of existence; it also has a nose-tweaking streak coursing throughout, particularly where hip, trendy art and culture is concerned. Carol Frost takes us on a poetic tour of unnamed, though perhaps not completely mysterious, cities in three of her four contributions. And then there is Jay Leeming’s funny and biting “To a God of Dribble Glasses and Loneliness,” which imagines a stand-up comedian as an emissary of peace who finds himself jailed in a war-ravaged country, contemplating with his jokester’s wit life’s farcicalities.

Of course, there is more, so much more, as you will discover when you pick up your copy or, better yet, subscribe. To do either or both, or to give a gift, head over to our Online Shop. We always like hearing from our readers, so please let us know what you think of the new issue. If you are a user of social media, say hello and like us on Facebook. There will be more news to pass along in the coming weeks/months, but until then, thanks for your support, and keep reading.

MD

News

Richly deserved congratulations to longtime Gettysburg Review contributor Leslie Pietrzyk, who has won the very prestigious 2015 Drue Heinz Literature Prize for her collection of short stories This Angel on My Chest, which will be published in the fall of 2015 by the University of Pittsburgh Press.

Congratulations to Gettysburg Review author Surya (S. K.) Kalsi, whose first novel, The Stove-Junker—which is set in Pennsylvania’s Luzerne County—will be published by Little Feather Books in April. Check out his short story “Nocturnes” in our Spring 2015 issue.

Longtime Gettysburg Review contributor and novelist Kent Nelson has a new collection of short stories, The Spirit Bird, which was selected by David Guterson (Snow Falling on Cedars) as the 2014 winner University of Pittsburgh Press’s Drue Heinz Literature Prize.